


A House of a Different Color

by Tathrin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Hufflepuff Pansy Parkinson, Non-Canon House, POV Multiple, Ravenclaw Draco Malfoy, Ravenclaw Hermione Granger, Slytherin Harry Potter, Slytherin Ron Weasley, although i really like action and fight scenes so there will be stuff with the war too, anyway this story is basically just a lark because i'm fascinated by the idea of house sorting, just aimless character stuff really, suggestions and counter arguements welcome!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-29 14:00:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8492479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tathrin/pseuds/Tathrin
Summary: There are two sides to every coin, two paths for every step taken. The same is true at Hogwarts: no student ever fits solely into just one House. What would their lives have been like if everyone had gone to their second-most-likely place on the day of their Sorting?





	1. Hannah Abbott

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who have read my _[Green-Eyed Snake](http://archiveofourown.org/series/21047)_ stories, this will be a decidedly different experience. While I will still be drawing heavily from canon, I will not be “rewriting” the books themselves. For one thing, far too many things have been changed here to make that a worthwhile expenditure; for another, I do not want to stick solely to one character’s perspective but rather to explore this idea through a multitude of eyes; thirdly, this is going to be much more about various characters’ development than the over-arching plot of the war—which will still be happening of course, but more as a backdrop through which the characters will move and change. Mainly though, that simply isn’t the point of this story the way it was GES. 
> 
> The _Green-Eyed Snake_ series is meant to be a single-divergence “what if” focused on twisting the books themselves into a slightly greener hue. Here I want to play with house stereotypes and expectations and push our familiar (and less familiar) characters into new territory to see what happens. Here I am unfettering myself from the strict constraints under which I wrote GES (although I may occasionally still sprinkle in bits and pieces from the books to add flavor, or to quote necessary dialogue, although with much less regularity and length) and also from the burden of echoing Rowling’s style and words. Likewise while I will be doing my best to not write anything explicitly non-canonical, I must warn you that I am not approaching this story with the idea that nothing can change that isn’t directly affected by the initial divergence, as I did GES. Which is all to say that if you are expecting to read that sort of story again, you are going to be disappointed!
> 
> (This story should also have little to no impact on the update-frequency of GES. This is a quick, fun little dalliance that requires only perfunctory research, no rewriting, and hardly any forethought. I’ll be playing around with this when I don’t have the attention or focus necessary for the detailed crafting of GES. So you don’t have to worry about this delaying the progress of that series! This is just a fun little side-project to help my brain relax when I need a break from that massive, complicated undertaking but still feel like dabbling in the world of _Harry Potter_ fanfiction.)

Looking up into a ceiling full of stars and floating candles was disconcerting, but not as disconcerting as looking into the faces of all the staring, curious older students, so Hannah Abbott kept her gaze fixed determinedly upwards. She was nervous enough without meeting the eyes of any watchers. When the Sorting Hat finished its song she clapped along with everyone else, but she’d hardly been able to pay attention to its words for the twisting in her stomach.

When Professor McGonagall stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment and said, “When I call your name you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted,” Hannah’s stomach did a little flip, but when the stern-faced witch followed that statement by reading off, “Abbott, Hannah!” her guts twisted so badly she feared she might throw-up.

Swallowing hard she stepped forward, tripped a little on the hem on her robes— _“Get them a little long, dear,” her mother had told her, “that way you won’t have to worry about charming them to fit when you grow”_ —and made it onto the stool without vomiting or dying of embarrassment. The hat dropped over her eyes and Hannah was grateful; from how hot her face felt she was sure she was blushing terribly and she was glad to hide from everyone’s stares.

Hannah hadn’t realized that she would be the first to be called. That wasn’t fair, couldn’t Professor McGonagall have asked for volunteers instead? Surely someone bolder would have put their hand up if she had, and then they could have been the first to put on the hat, not her. What if she did something wrong? What if she’d _already_ done something wrong and didn’t know it?

Before her nerves could swallow her completely, Hannah was startled to hear a voice in her head: “Strong loyalties, I see…and a great belief in justice…but anxiety isn’t the same thing as cowardice, is it? No, there’s quite a lot of courage in there hidden under all those strained nerves. Yes, I think perhaps the best place for you will be…GRYFFINDOR!”

The final word was shouted aloud to the whole hall, which erupted in cheers. Hannah gave a little squeak when she realized that she had just been sorted and she lifted the hat off her eyes with shaking hands. She used the excuse of setting it down neatly on the stool to give herself a moment to turn her back and try to compose herself, but it didn’t work. She was still shaking—and blushing—when she staggered to the Gryffindor Table. She knew it had to be the Gryffindor Table because everyone there was cheering the loudest, waving her over, and pointing her toward empty seats. The ghost with the big ruff around his neck beamed at her and said, “Welcome, welcome!”

Trying not to meet anyone’s eyes—living or dead—Hannah ducked her head and walked very quickly to the nearest open spot on the bench. People slapped her back, shook her hand, smiled at her; Hannah forced herself to smile back as she clenched her fingers under the table and hoped she wasn’t going to faint. She barely heard Professor McGonagall calling the next name—“Bones, Susan!”—but she heard the cheers when the girl was sent to Ravenclaw, her long pigtail bouncing behind her.

Glad to no longer be the center of attention, Hannah turned around so she could watch the rest of the Sorting. Perhaps there was one good thing about going first: now she was done, and could stop worrying. When Millicent Bulstrode—a tall, black-haired girl who kept her chin raised proudly—lifted the hat off her head to another shout of, “GRYFFINDOR!” Hannah clapped along with the rest of her new housemates. She smiled in what she hoped looked like a welcoming manner as Millicent, looking a little dazed, slid onto the bench next to her, but Millicent said nothing; just turned around to watch the rest of the first years troop one by one up to tall stool.

Hannah turned with her. She clapped dutifully after each Sorting and did her best to give her fellow Gryffindors an encouraging welcome. While many looked nervous or drained after being sorted, a few students beamed, or bowed, or grinned, as though they hadn’t a care in the world. Hannah envied them and wished she knew what that felt like. Her father liked to joke that she cared too much for her own good, but right now it didn’t feel like a joke; right now, Hannah would have given anything to stop caring—to stop _fretting._ She didn't feel brave, and she didn't feel like she belonged in Gryffindor.

At first when Vincent Crabbe had come to sit next to Millicent, Hannah had wondered wildly if she really had been sorted into the wrong House; she knew that Gryffindors were supposed to be brave, and she had worried that large builds and strong muscles went along with that, but when chubby, curly-haired Justin Finch-Fletchly came to join them, she’d relaxed again—a little bit. He looked a lot more confident in himself than Hannah felt, but at least he didn’t look like he could wrestle trolls and win.

She returned Justin’s enthusiastic handshake with a weak squeeze of her own and a tremulous smile, then turned again to face the stool and the Sorting.

After nearly a minute’s debate, the Sorting Hat sent the Hufflepuffs their first new student: Seams Finnigan, a short sandy-haired boy who spread his arms wide in greeting as he walked to his energetically-cheering table, as though he intended to greet them all with one big hug. Two more boys followed him: a skinny one with a big nose and a larger one with sloping gorilla-like arms. Then Professor McGonagall called up the girl who had been muttering spells under her breath while they’d been waiting in the entrance hall—“Granger, Hermione.”

She almost ran to get to the stool and jammed the hat down over her thick mane of bushy brown hair. There was a pause, and then: “RAVENCLAW!” shouted the hat. Hannah wasn’t surprised.

After Hermione, the Hufflepuffs got their first girl: Daphne Greengrass, who held her nose in the air when she walked. The ribbon holding her dark curls out of her face had almost slipped free and one of the older students caught it as Daphne sat down. He retied it for her as the first year girl blushed a furious red. Hannah winced on her behalf and nervously checked to make sure her own pigtails were still tidy—or as tidy as they could be after a day-long train ride, anyway.

For a long time no further Gryffindors were called, and for Hannah the next few names and faces passed in a blur. The only standout was Neville Longbottom, a round-faced boy who sat on the stool for a long time before the hat finally sent him to Hufflepuff. He ran off still wearing the hat, and had to jog back amid gales of laughter to give it to “MacDougal, Morag.”

She was followed by a whole group of Ravenclaws. Hannah wasn’t the only one who started to squirm as one by one each student called went to sit at the table next to hers. When a pug-nosed girl with short black hair broke the streak by going to Hufflepuff, several people breathed a sigh of relief. What if the hat had gotten stuck, and they had to do part—or all—of the Sorting over again? Hannah didn’t think she could bear that, and from the way the five newest Ravenclaws sagged with relief, she didn’t think she was the only one who had been worried.

The next two girls called went to Hufflepuff as well, but they looked so much alike that they had to be twins and Hannah knew that families were often sorted together, so that didn’t worry her. Still, when the Sorting Hat at last shouted “GRYFFINDOR!” again, she cheered the loudest she had all night for Sally-Anne Perks, and waved the girl eagerly into a seat next to her.

The very next name caught the attention of the whole room: “Potter, Harry!”

A gangly boy with glasses and messy black hair stepped forward from the line of remaining first years. Everyone craned their necks to look at him and whispers broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall.

“ _Potter_ , did she say?”

“ _The_ Harry Potter?”

The hat dropped over Harry Potter’s eyes, but that didn’t stop everyone from staring at him. Hannah thought he looked a little bit like the last two Hufflepuffs, and wondered if the Potters were related to the Patils. He was a little paler though, and not as pretty, and their hair looked much neater than the untidy black locks currently concealed underneath the Sorting Hat. He certainly didn’t look like what she had imagined The Boy Who Lived looking—although what she _had_ imagined, she couldn’t say.

After what felt like an eternity—but probably was no more than a minute or two—the Sorting Hat shouted, “SLYTHERIN!” and Harry Potter emerged from beneath the hat. He looked shaken, drained, and not particularly happy. His new housemates, however, were ecstatic. Several jumped to their feet to applaud and so many people leaned across one another to try and shake Harry’s hand that they knocked a whole bench over. The noise only abated when a tall, black-haired teacher stood up and banged his hand on the staff table for silence.

The Slytherins settled down, beaming and preening, and those close enough to Harry kept leaning over to whisper at him in between sortings—introducing themselves probably, Hannah suspected, although how they expected Harry Potter to remember so many unfamiliar names all at once she had no idea.

She felt a little sorry for the next two students sorted—“Rivers!” and “Roper!”—who must have thought their own welcomes to Slytherin somewhat anticlimactic in comparison, although if they minded it didn’t show in their smiles. Then “Runcorn!” came to the Gryffindor table, and “Smith!” back to Slytherin, and “Thomas!” to Hufflepuff. Hannah’s stomach rumbled and she blushed so hard that she almost missed welcoming Lisa Turpin when the wiry girl sat down across from her. Fortunately there were only two more students in line at that point—“Weasley, Ron!” and “Zabini, Blaise!”—and then the sorting was over at last. Professor McGonagall rolled up her scroll and carried the tattered old hat away.

A tall, silver-haired and -bearded man in beautifully embroidered robes, who had to be the headmaster, stood up from his gold chair at the center of the High Table. “Welcome!” Albus Dumbledore said to them all. “Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words.” Hannah’s spirits sank; she was starving, and she knew that if the headmaster gave a long speech, her stomach would embarrass her again by making more noisy complaints. But Dumbledore said only, “And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!”

Then he sat back down. A few people laughed while they clapped but Hannah just cheered, relieved. The dishes in front of them were now piled with scrumptious, steaming food and for once Hannah didn’t hesitate before helping herself to a heaping spoonful from the nearest bowl. All around her the other Gryffindors were dishing generous helpings onto their own plates, chatting with one another as they ate.

Hannah said nothing, feeling shy and out-of-place. She wasn’t used to being around so many people she didn’t know, and she wasn’t sure how to go about trying to make friends with her new housemates. The older students all knew each other already, and the cacophonous babble of their talk washed over her ears like an avalanche. Would anyone even hear her if she tried to speak?

Then Terry Boot, a light-skinned black boy, leaned across the table and said, “I like your name.” He had a lilting Scottish accent and a shockingly intense collection of freckles on his round cheeks.

Hannah frowned uncertainly. “Um…thank you?” she said.

Terry nodded. “Yeah,” he said, and grinned mischievously. “I’d have hated to have to go first. I’m glad abbots come earlier in the alphabet than boots. I was about to ask to have my name changed to Shoe, just to dodge the perils of alphabetical order.”

Hannah couldn’t help herself; she laughed.

When the last of the students finally gave up and put their fork down—Hannah had been forced to stop eating several minutes ago, fearing that she might actually burst, although she had continued to pick idly at the bits of potato and onion on her plate just because they were so tasty—the remains of the food vanished. The golden plates were left as clean and shining as if they had been freshly washed and dried and Hannah raised her eyebrows a little bit, impressed. Then her jaw dropped as the desserts appeared. Blocks of ice cream in every flavor you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate éclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O, rice pudding….

Hannah had thought she was full, but she changed her mind and helped herself to an éclair.

At last the desserts too disappeared, and Professor Dumbledore got to his feet again. The hall fell silent.

“Ahem—just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you.” Hannah tried not to let her attention wander, but she was very pleasantly full of food and starting to yawn after her long day. She ducked her face down behind her hands and hoped no one thought she was being rude by hiding while the headmaster rambled on about school rules and regulations. Then Dumbledore said something that drove her sleepiness away with a jolt: “Finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death.”

A few people laughed but most, like Hannah, just stared. She lowered her hands slowly, feeling horror trickle up her spine. Heads leaned sideways, students not wanting to take their eyes away from the headmaster as they whispered to one another. Next to her, Hannah heard Sally-Anne mutter, “He must be joking, though,” but Hannah thought she didn’t sound very sure of herself.

“And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!” cried Dumbledore, as though he had said nothing at all out of the ordinary. Hannah noticed that the other teachers’ smiles had become rather fixed. She wondered if that was a reaction to his statement about the third floor, or if they just weren't fond of singing. Hannah herself sang very rarely, and never in front of other people, being that she was insecure about her wobbly voice and imperfect pitch.

Dumbledore gave his wand a little flick, as if he was trying to get a fly off the end, and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, which rose high above the tables and twisted itself, snakelike, into words.

“Everyone pick their favorite tune,” said Dumbledore, “and off we go!”

Hannah looked up at the gleaming words and sang along dutifully. It was a strange, discordant noise that filled the Great Hall, what with everyone singing something different all at the same time. The last to finish were two identical red-haired boys at the Slytherin table. They had for some reason chosen to sing a very slow funeral march. Dumbledore conducted their last few lines with his wand and when they had finished, he was one of those who clapped loudest.

“Ah, music,” he said, wiping his eyes. “A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!”

Hannah rose with the other Gryffindors and followed along as her housemates trooped out of the Great Hall and up the marble staircase. She ducked her head and looked away from the watching portraits as they whispered and pointed. Twice they went through doorways hidden behind sliding panels and hanging tapestries and Hannah was soon quite properly lost. She hoped nobody expected her to be able to remember their route tomorrow.

She was so tired that she barely flinched at the arrival of the school’s poltergeist and his floating walking sticks, although when those started flinging themselves at the tall student standing at the front of their group, she ducked along with everyone else. The prefect who had been leading them caught one of the sticks before it could hit her and she shook it angrily while she scolded Peeves. He finally left when he was threatened with the Bloody Baron—whatever _that_ was, Hannah didn’t want to know!—and they all walked a little faster until they came to a large portrait at the end of the corridor.

A very fat woman in a pink silk dress watched them from the ornate frame. Hannah thought she looked welcoming and kind, but after Peeves, almost anyone would have. “Password?” she asked.

“Caput Draconis,” said the prefect, and the portrait swung forward to reveal a round hole in the wall. They all scrambled through it—Hannah almost tripping over her robes before Millicent steadied her—and found themselves in the Gryffindor common room, a cozy, round room full of squashy armchairs. Its curved stone walls were covered with heavy tapestries and bright hangings, with two wooden doors on the opposite side of the room.

Hannah and the other girls took the door to their dormitory up to the top of a spiral staircase and there they found their beds at last. By this time Hannah was yawning so hard she could barely muster the energy to find the pajamas she had packed in her trunk, and the girls all climbed into bed without talking much. Hannah fell asleep almost at once.


	2. Harry Potter

Harry woke with a lingering, inexplicable sense of confusion, as though he had just had a very important dream that he now could not remember. He blinked, looked around, and blinked again, confused by what he saw. He was surrounded on all four sides by thick, dark green curtains, and the bed he was lying in was softer than what he was used to. He sat up, pushed the curtains aside, and groped for his glasses on the bedside table.

Then the night before came rushing back and he understood where he was: the Slytherin first year boys’ dormitory in the dungeons of Hogwarts. A dim, wavering green light came through the windows along one stone wall; they had all of them been too tired to think about closing the curtains last night, but since they were underwater, dawn was thankfully a muted affair. Harry looked around and saw that his new roommates were still sleeping, or at least they hadn’t yet felt the urge to get up and face the day since their beds’ emerald curtains were all still closed. Harry figured they had to be sleeping; he couldn’t imagine anyone not being so excited about their first day at Hogwarts that they wouldn’t bolt out of bed the moment they woke.

He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about being in Slytherin yet—although he’d felt better about the prospect after his talk with Ron on the train yesterday than he had when he’d first heard about the different Houses; Hagrid, it seemed, had exaggerated a little when he’d claimed that _every_ witch and wizard who’d ever gone bad had come from Slytherin House—but he certainly knew how he felt about being at Hogwarts itself: elated.

Harry climbed out of the plush nest of his bed and rummaged through his trunk as quietly as he could manage. Fortunately he had spent the last month of his summer in such a state of anticipation over his arrival at Hogwarts that he had even found packing—and re-packing—his trunk to be exciting, so his things were arranged more neatly than they might otherwise have been. The long black robes he pulled out weren’t even wrinkled and his pointed hat only took a little prodding before it straightened out again. He settled it securely on his head and checked the angle in the mirror of their attached communal bathroom.

By the time Harry finished dressing his new housemates had started to stir. Harry greeted Ron with a cheerful, “Good morning!” and got a smile broken by a yawn in return. He didn’t know any of the other boys but they were all eager to introduce themselves to him:

Oliver Rivers, a short boy of Japanese and Irish descent, had shoulder-length black hair and a lilting, musical accent that was nearly hypnotizing when combined with his habit of expansive hand-gestures; Kevin Entwhistle, a gangly white boy whose albinism gave his skin a chalky complexion, had a nose like a beak and a voice that squeaked when he was nervous; Michael Corner, a Romany boy with thick black hair and high cheekbones, had an intense stare and spoke in loud, fast bursts; George Smith, a chubby boy whose Indian heritage was even more distant than Harry’s, had tan skin, curly dark blonde hair, and an upturned nose, coupled with a snooty and drawling voice that set Harry’s teeth on edge even though everything he said was perfectly polite.

Harry shook hands all around, feeling awkward. He was relieved when Ron suggested heading to breakfast early and he turned to leave in such a hurry that he almost forgot to take his wand. Michael laughed at him when he went back for it; Harry pretended not to hear.

When he got upstairs he slowed down to take a better look around than he had bothered with last night, when he had been almost asleep on his feet. The Slytherin common room was a long, low underground room with rough stone walls and ceiling from which round, greenish lamps were hanging on chains. Despite the warm early-autumn weather a low fire smoldered under an elaborately carved mantelpiece. Skulls and snakes seemed to be the primary motif of the décor, which was slightly creepy, but in a very elegant, old-fashioned way. The windows looked out into water—probably the lake that they had come over in the boats yesterday evening, Harry thought—giving the room something of the feeling of an aquarium. It was weird, but also a little soothing, and Harry guessed that the fire was kept lit to ward off any chill or dampness that being underwater might cause. The floor was smooth flagstone but a number of thick rugs were scattered in between the high-backed chairs and low couches. It wasn’t the sort of room that Harry would have chosen for himself, being a bit too fancy as well as a bit too subdued for his preferred tastes, but it definitely had style.

He decided he might be able to like it here, especially with Ron at his side. And besides, what was so bad about wanting to do great things? Maybe if he did something magnificent, he would stop feeling like an imposter when people squeaked and fluttered at the idea of meeting him. Not that he was likely to do anything quite as incredible as destroying a Dark Lord again, but he could do _something_ worthwhile, at least. Then he might feel like he deserved all those handshakes and accolades.

Feeling cheered by the thought, Harry led the way out through the sliding stones of the secret entrance and up to the Great Hall.

He was glad it wasn’t a long trip; despite retracing their steps from last night he and Ron got lost twice, finding dead ends instead of the staircases they expected, but they made it out of the dungeons after only a few wasted minutes and sat down happily to the large, delicious breakfast waiting on the Slytherin table. Harry was amazed by the amount of bacon that Ron managed to consume, although he was outdone by his older brothers when Fred and George arrived a few minutes later in company with a tall black girl who wore her long hair in a number of thin braids. She introduced herself as Angelina Johnson and spent the entirety of the meal discussing the upcoming Quidditch try-outs with the Weasley twins.

Ron sighed gustily. “It’s so unfair that first years aren’t allowed their own brooms,” he said. Harry grunted his agreement around a large mouthful of potatoes. “I mean, I guess it’s not likely that anybody would make it onto their house team their first year anyway,” Ron continued, “but to not even let us _try_ —that’s just not right.” He shook his head.

“You’d try-out if you could? This year?” The speaker was another first year, but Harry couldn’t remember her name from the night before; so many of the names Professor McGonagall had called had blurred together in his memory. She was a dark-skinned black girl, short and solidly built, with round cheeks and a wide nose. Her hair she wore loose in an explosion of kinked curls that wobbled above her head like a dandelion’s tuft. She was peering at Ron curiously, her head tilted sideways as though he might make more sense from another angle.

“’Course I would,” Ron answered her stoutly. “Wouldn’t you?”

The girl shrugged. “I don’t think so,” she said. “What if you botched it? You’ve no idea what the captains are looking for yet, you’ve never seen any of the teams play, you’ve had no time to prepare. To tell you the truth I’d rather have a chance to scout ahead, see what’s what, and then be able to put forth my best effort, like.”

“Well it’s not like you can’t try-out again the next year if you blow it,” Ron blustered.

“Sure,” the girl agreed amiably, “but if you’ve made a horrible impression you’ll have to be extremely good to negate that in the captain’s memory, don’t you think?” She smiled almost apologetically and added, in a rueful voice, “Sorry, my aunt’s a Quidditch player, so she talks about this sort of stuff a lot.”

“Your aunt plays Quidditch? What, professionally?” Ron leaned forward and Harry craned his neck to peek around his friend, intrigued as well.

It was hard to tell on cheeks as dark as hers, but Harry thought the girl might have blushed. “Yeah,” she admitted, “you’ve probably heard of her: Gwenog Jones. My name’s Megan,” she added, in a slightly wistful voice, as though she didn’t expect that part to matter.

She was right; Ron’s jaw dropped open and he put his fork down with a clatter. “Gwenog Jones?” he repeated. “ _The_ Gwenog Jones? Captain of the Holyhead Harpies?”

Megan nodded.

Harry squirmed in his seat, feeling left-out. He wondered if there were sports magazines in the Wizarding World, and if any of his housemates had brought some along that he might be able to borrow so he could catch-up on some of the details about wizarding life that everyone else at Hogwarts seemed to take for granted.

Ron was sputtering a little, reminding Harry of a kettle left on the hob too long, but after a minute or two he got himself under control and launched into a fierce dissection of Megan’s aunt’s maneuvers and motivations spread over what seemed to be her whole career. At first Megan tried to defend her aunt, but after several rounds of back-and-forth with Ron, throughout which he refused to give so much as an inch without immediately changing topic to a different match or a different move, she gave up.

“Why don’t you write her and ask?” she challenged him.

Ron went white under his freckles. “What—write to Gwenog Jones? Directly? Me?” He gulped.

Megan smiled sweetly. “I’m sure she’d be _enthralled_ to hear your opinions,” she said.

Ron gulped again and turned his attention to his food.

Megan smirked and shifted in her seat to talk to the girls on her other side instead.

Harry swallowed a grin and poured himself another goblet of pumpkin juice.

. . . .

He hardly minded the whispers that followed him around the school; he reminded himself that he was going to find a way to earn the interest that everybody had in him someday, and anyway, he was preoccupied with trying to find his way around. That was made even more difficult than it sounded by some of the peculiarities of Hogwarts castle:

Not only were there a hundred and forty-two staircases—some wide and sweeping, others narrow and rickety—some of them led somewhere different on a Friday and some had a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. The doors were no better; aside from the handful that seemed to be nothing more than solid walls just pretending, some of them wouldn’t open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place. It was almost impossible to use landmarks for directions too; aside from all the moving staircases the people in the portraits kept going to visit each other, and Harry was sure the coats of armor could walk. He and Ron got lost more than once and their fellow first years didn't seem to fare much better. Most of the teachers had little patience for tardiness, although Professor Flitwick always seemed apologetic when he scolded them. Unfortunately the one teacher who might have been willing to overlook a bit of lateness from a confused new student was Professor Sprout, and her greenhouses were one of the few places in the school that was always easy to find.

The ghosts didn’t help, either. It was always a nasty shock when one of them glided suddenly through a door you were trying to open. The Bloody Baron was far too intimidating to ask for directions, and then there was Peeves the Poltergeist; he was worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you met him when you were late for class. He would drop wastepaper baskets on your head, pull rugs from under your feet, pelt you with bits of chalk, or sneak up behind you, invisible, grab your nose, and screech, “GOT YOUR CONK!” Harry and Ron tried threatening him with the Bloody Baron the way that prefect had their first night at school, but Peeves just cackled, secure in the assumption that no first year Slytherin would dare bother their fearsome house ghost just to make the poltergeist go away. Sadly, he was right, although Harry longed to see the Baron put Peeves in his place.

Things didn't get easier once you'd managed to find the way to your classroom, either. There was a lot more to magic, as Harry quickly found out, than waving your wand and saying a few funny words. The intensity—and oddness—of the lessons had an upside, though: Harry could stop worrying that he was miles behind everyone else. Lots of people had come from Muggle families and, like him, hadn’t had any idea that they were witches and wizards. There was so much to learn that even people like Ron didn’t have much of a head start, although George in particular liked to brag about how much his parents had taught him ahead of time. Harry would have found the shorter boy very annoying if there hadn’t been so many more fascinating things at Hogwarts to pay attention to instead of him.

Even their homework was interesting, although not interesting enough to make Harry actually enjoy doing homework. He would have much rather been reading-up on Quidditch, or exploring the school with Ron, than writing essays—even essays on topics like, “The Side-Effects of Hasty Transfiguration,” or “How To Charm Corkscrews.” The most boring class of all was History of Magic, although from the reading he had to do in order to make-up for not paying attention during the lectures, Harry could at least appreciate that the subject might have been an interesting one if it had been taught by someone less dull than the late Professor Binns.

On Friday the new Slytherins finally had a class with their Head of House, Professor Snape. Harry was nervous. At the start-of-term banquet, Harry had gotten the idea that Professor Snape disliked him. He didn’t want to be on bad terms with the head of Slytherin House, so he made sure to leave breakfast early enough that he wouldn’t be late to class even if he ran into Peeves twice.

He was one of the first to arrive in the dungeon classroom, Ron trailing him and complaining about how much time they’d wasted by showing up so early. The rest of the class soon filed in; they were sharing this lesson with the Gryffindors.

Snape arrived shortly before the bell, sweeping into the room in a gust of black robes. Everybody went quiet at once, even though he hadn’t told them to stop talking. Like Flitwick, he started the class by taking the roll call, and like Flitwick, he paused at Harry’s name.

“Ah, yes,” he said softly, “Harry Potter. Slytherin House’s new— _celebrity.”_

Harry squirmed in his seat, feeling odd. He was starting to get used to people reacting strongly to his name or appearance, but something about Snape’s quiet voice unsettled him. There was none of the excitement in his tone with which most of the Wizarding World reacted to the Boy Who Lived. Harry couldn’t place what it was that bothered him about Professor Snape’s reaction, exactly—but it was strange.

Snape finished calling the names and looked up at the class. His eyes were black like Hagrid’s, but they had none of Hagrid’s warmth. They were cold and empty and made you think of dark tunnels.

“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making,” he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word—Harry wasn’t the only one holding his breath in order to keep especially silent to listen. He doubted that even Peeves would dare interrupt Professor Snape during a lecture. “As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses….I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopped death—if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.”

A ringing silence followed his words. Harry and Ron exchanged looks with raised eyebrows, Harry glad that someone else seemed unsettled by Snape’s words as much as he was. Looking around the room he observed that most of his other classmates likewise looked taken aback or uncertain about the Potions Master’s speech, although a few stared at Snape with eager expressions and glittering eyes. Harry shook his head. He didn’t think any of his other teachers had sounded like they loved their subject even half as much as Snape did his, not even cheerful Professor Sprout with her greenhouses full of plants that she treated more like children than foliage. He somehow felt even more nervous now than he had at the start of the lesson.

Snape put them all into pairs and set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils. He swept around the room in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone. He continuously peered into the cauldron that Harry and Ron were sharing, sniffing as though deeply unimpressed, but he said little to the two of them despite watching them so closely. Harry wasn’t sure why Snape was keeping quiet and it made him nervous. He would almost have rather received a share or two of the endless criticism that the rest of the class faced than the cold, unfathomable pressure of Snape’s dark eyes peering down at him like he was a strange new bug that the Potions Master wasn’t sure whether he wanted to squash or not. Harry was so distracted by keeping an eye on Snape that, despite his best attempts to follow the instructions on the blackboard, twice he measured ingredients wrong and once he started to stir the wrong direction; thankfully Ron stopped him before his mistakes could ruin their potion.

When class ended Harry had to force himself not to run from the room, so relieved was he to escape the strange tension of that black stare. He was sure he could still feel Snape’s eyes boring into the back of his neck as he walked away, even after he turned the corner and put solid stone between himself and the potions room.


	3. Draco Malfoy

Draco didn’t actually _dislike_ Ravenclaw Tower. Their common room was a wide, circular room, airier than any other he had yet come across at Hogwarts. Graceful arched windows punctuated the walls, which were hung with blue-and-bronze silks. By day, they had a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains. The ceiling was domed and painted with stars, which were echoed in the midnight blue carpet. There were tables, chairs, and bookcases, and in a niche opposite the door a tall statue of white marble showing their House’s founder, Rowena Ravenclaw. The statue stood beside a door that led to the dormitories above.

The first year boys’ room was one flight up, their stairs branching off to the left while the girls went to the right. The dormitories were curved rooms and their outer wall was lined with windows. Each student had a plush canopied bed and a nightstand carved of bright cedar wood. Heavy drapes could shut-out the light from the tall windows, although Draco and his new roommates had been rudely awakened by dawn streaming in at them on their first morning at Hogwarts; they had all of them been too tired to think to close the curtains the night before. They were careful to remember to shut them after that; dawn was far too early an hour to wake up, even in order to go learn magic.

Draco had found that wake-up call especially obnoxious because he had been expecting dim, greenish light in a snug underwater common room. His parents had told him quite a lot about the dungeons that all three of them had been expecting him to live in during his time at Hogwarts. Those dungeons, he was sure, would have been soothing and comfortable, insulated from the elements by tons of dirt, stone, and water. Not so Ravenclaw Tower, which was the second tallest of the whole castle, and was thus exposed to every gust of wind, spurt of rain, and ray of sun. Whenever the wind got going hard enough to wake him in the middle of the night, Draco cursed the Sorting Hat, wishing himself snug in the depths of the school’s dungeons. When the weather was nice and the sun was shining or the stars were out, he didn’t mind as much—although of course Slytherin would have been _better_ than Ravenclaw.

He knew his parents felt the same way, despite what they’d said in the reassuring letters his owl had brought him in the first round of post from home.

“Darling, you can’t possibly be upset to be recognized for your intellect,” his mother had written him, “nor very surprised by it, not when you’ve always been so astonishingly brilliant. Truly we should have expected it if we’d taken a minute to think instead of just falling back on tired old presumptions, and I’m sure that Ravenclaw House is delighted to have merited such a coup as you. They certainly ought to be, and I’ve no doubt your housemates will recognize your superior wits, breeding, and skills in short order. I’ve sent along all of your favorite treats to help you feel more at home, and if you need anything at all, darling, just write to us and I’ll put it in the post for you straightaway….”

“Really it’s only to be expected,” his father had written him, “because what would be the point of telling you to focus on your ambitions when you’re already starting so far ahead of everyone else? There’s nothing you need from Slytherin that you can’t get elsewhere, or that the family doesn’t have already, so you might as well be in Ravenclaw where you can develop your other talents instead of wasting your time retreading old ground. Besides, standards for Slytherin House have been falling ever since Dumbledore took up the post of headmaster; if they’re going to admit Weasleys you’re clearly better off elsewhere, away from riff-raff like that! Of course it would have come in handy having an old family friend for your head of house, but I have no doubt that Professor Snape will keep an eye out for you on our behalf anyway, so it’s not as if you’ve really lost out on anything much there either….”

Draco did feel like he had lost something, though. Malfoys—and especially Blacks— _belonged_ in Slytherin and always had. Regardless of his parents’ assurances to the contrary he knew he was bucking tradition, and it bothered him. He had always wanted to be the perfect son, the perfect Malfoy, and being in Ravenclaw—while not exactly a _bad_ thing, certainly it was nothing to be embarrassed by the way one would be over being sorted into Gryffindor or Hufflepuff—was something other than perfect. It was a deviation from expectations, a divergence from the parental footsteps he had planned to follow, an unanticipated _change_ in the plans for his life that had always seemed so certain.

He wasn’t used to having to _think_ about the future. Not as something that contained _options_ or _choices_ or _decisions_ to be made. It was unnerving.

So he did his best to put such thoughts out of his mind and focus on other things instead. Fortunately learning his way around the multitude of ever-changing staircases and corridors took a lot of concentration, and then there was the Riddle to be answered every time he returned to his common room. The strangest part of that wasn’t that someone—or rather, some _thing_ —was standing in his way and stopping him from doing exactly as he pleased (although that was strange), but rather that so many of his housemates liked to attempt it as a _team_. Draco didn’t have a lot of experience working together with other people, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. The answer was often ambiguous too, and he wasn’t sure he liked that either.

“Just be open-minded,” one of the prefects had encouraged the first years when they had balked at the idea of having to think their way inside. “There really aren’t a lot of _wrong_ answers, not if you can explain how they make sense to you, anyway. It’s all about _thinking_ , not—not learning things by _rote_.” He had snickered derisively, and a bushy-haired girl standing in the back of the group had gasped as though insulted, and Draco had relaxed a little. He was good at explanations, at least those that involved talking other people into seeing things his way; he thought he could probably have the eagle-knocker eating out of his hand in five minutes flat no matter what answer he gave it.

It wasn’t quite as easy as that, he soon learned, but after he’d gotten over the shock of being refused entry it actually hadn’t been an awful experience. Having to prove that he was clever in order to pass—that made him feel proud, or at least it did when he succeeded on his own. When other students got in the way and messed-up his attempt at an answer, or put forth one he didn’t like, that was of course a different matter. He tried not to let his annoyance show on his face when they interfered, not wanting to make any enemies until he knew his housemates better and could decide who was worth befriending, who wasn’t, and who was so far beneath him they deserved only scorn. That was something he knew he couldn’t judge on first glance, much as it would have made life easier if he could; but just because someone looked like “the right sort” didn’t mean they _were_ —and occasionally people who looked utterly useless were worth more than expected.

Draco liked to think that he looked exactly like what he was. A skinny, pallid boy with thin ash-blonde hair, he wasn’t unattractive, but he also wasn’t as handsome as he thought he was. His demeanor tended to alternate between smug and sullen with very little deviation. He was a shade taller than average for his age, although at just three months past eleven that meant that he was much shorter than most of the inhabitants of Hogwarts—a fact that he never let interfere with his habit of looking at other people down the length of his sharp nose. That was a skill he had learned from mimicking his father, who was the source for most of Draco’s mannerisms both physical and verbal. The drawling, snide voice; the half-lidded, scornful eyes; the sharply quirked brow; the derisive half-smirk; the dismissive, fluttering fingers; even the pointedly false yawn of indolent disinterest was a gesture he had copied directly from his father’s repertoire. From his mother Draco had inherited the thin, pointed nose and sharp, narrow chin that defined so many members of the Black family, and it was also from her that he had gotten his early mastery of the sneer in all its myriad of forms, from the curled lip to the wrinkled nose—but it was his father whom Draco aped deliberately, striving to turn himself into a perfect copy of Lucius Malfoy down to the very last inch, from the arrogant tilt of his chin to the icy chill of his cold gray eyes.

Draco knew exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up: his father. That was the biggest problem with being sorted into Ravenclaw. Lucius Malfoy had been sorted into Slytherin, just like the vast majority of relatives on both sides of Draco’s family tree, and so being sent to any other house meant he couldn’t follow in Lucius’s footsteps as exactingly as he had planned. The fact that he was stuck wearing plain, ordinary uniform robes for most of his time at Hogwarts grated on him too, although not as painfully; he shared little of his father’s genuine interest in fashion but he dutifully copied Lucius’s elegant style of dress as faithfully as every other trait or habit he could mimic. It was all part of his goal to forge himself into the perfect son and heir.

Right now though Draco wasn’t thinking about his ambitions but rather about the Riddle, wondering absently what kind of question the eagle-head knocker would pose to him as he climbed up Ravenclaw Tower’s spiral stairs. At least he wasn’t likely to find anyone else trying to enter at this time of the day who would get in his way by interjecting their own opinions or ideas—or so he’d assumed, since he was coming here in between classes when most other students were enjoying a brief break in the early autumn sunlight of the courtyard. However, a shrill voice coming from the landing above him proved that Draco wasn’t the only one who had chosen to forgo the chance to bask:

“Wait, wait, I wasn’t done—I don’t think that was quite the _right_ answer—are you still listening? Hello? Oh, bother it all!”

Draco turned the corner just in time to see Hermione Granger—that annoying, bushy-haired girl who was always raising her hand in classes before he could—stomp her foot hard on the stone floor and glare at the knocker embedded in the open door. The eagle was still and silent now, as it always was once the door swung open; Draco hadn’t seen anyone try and argue with it _after_ it had accepted an answer before, only when it was refusing one.

“What are you doing?” he asked her, completely dumbfounded.

Hermione Granger turned around sharply, looking startled. Her cheeks flushed a bright pink. “Oh,” she said, “I didn’t realize anyone was—that is, I thought I was the only one who—I mean—I was just, er, trying to solve the riddle….”

“Yes,” Draco said, “but you’ve clearly solved it and yet you’re still talking to the eagle. Why?”

Granger squirmed as though she’d been caught cheating on her classwork, twisting her hands together and hunching her shoulders in miserably. “Well, I just…wasn’t quite happy with my answer,” she admitted awkwardly. “I just think there might be a better one. It didn’t really seem _exactly_ correct.”

“So?” Draco asked, nonplussed. “Who cares, if the door accepted it?”

“I care,” Granger muttered mutinously, then blushed harder. “I mean, if I’m going to be right about something, I want to be _properly_ right, you know?” she explained, her voice earnest. “I wouldn’t want to do the thing only halfway. And can an answer really be correct if there’s another answer that’s _more_ correct? Doesn’t that mean the first answer is basically wrong?”

Draco shrugged. “I don’t know,” he drawled, “isn’t that up to the eagle?”

“I suppose,” said Granger, sighing heavily. “It just…doesn’t seem like it ought to work that way. There ought to be _one_ answer and it ought to be the _right_ answer, and I just don’t like the idea that we can just—just _talk_ our way around giving a wrong one!”

Her voice grated on Draco’s nerves. She also had the ugliest hair he had ever seen—but she _was_ smart, she’d proved that in classes often enough. He thought about what his father had said, about cultivating other talents. He supposed that included cultivating other connections too, aside from the usual ones that he’d have been sure to strengthen by time in Slytherin. Granger was bossy and off-putting and unattractive, with her untidy mane of coarse brown hair and her big buck teeth and her thick, shapeless eyebrows…but she was no idiot, and intellect could be valuable when put to good use.

Draco decided to be generous, with the expectation of future reward. “Maybe that’s part of it, though,” he suggested, trying hard not to sound condescending. “Good answers require support, don’t they? So really the eagle is just teaching us how to support our reasoning, regardless of whether the answer itself would merit an O or an A.”

Granger frowned, then brightened. “Oh I do hope you’re right,” she said, suddenly sounding happy, “that would actually be a worthwhile lesson. And I’m sure it tailors the difficulty of its questions depending on the age of the student it’s asking, so probably after a while it will be a lot less generous in the precision of the answers it accepts, don’t you think?”

“Could be,” Draco demurred. He gestured indolently toward the still-open door. “So are you going inside or not?” he asked, before she could try and argue her point further. “I want to check something in my Charms book before our next class and you’re in the way.”

“You mean because of that thing Professor Quirrell said this morning, about how the underlying root of many Defense Against the Dark Arts spells can be found in basic charmswork?” Granger asked brightly. “Yes, I found that an intriguing idea as well,” she went on without giving him a chance to reply. “I hadn’t realized that our classes might actually build from and compound off of one another. I’d thought that the disciplines of magic were more strictly separated, myself, from the reading I did before school started. It’s a very interesting idea, being able to draw from one aspect of magic to enhance another, and I expect it’s probably not something that will actually be addressed in our lessons until the higher levels, so I’d wanted to look into it on my own, just out of curiosity you know….”

Feeling a little surprised that someone besides himself had paid enough attention to Quirrell’s off-hand comment to draw such a conclusion, Draco shrugged and followed the bushy-haired girl into the tower. For the first time he didn’t ignore her chatter, which he’d up until now been assuming was inane nonsense. The shrillness of her voice was still annoying, but—he realized with a little start of surprise—an unpleasant voice didn’t mean that a person’s words wasn’t worth listening to.

_Look at that father,_ he thought smugly to himself, _you were right. There are valuable things to cultivate in Ravenclaw after all—or at least worthwhile lessons that probably wouldn’t be learned in Slytherin House._ Who would have ever thought that somebody who sounded like—and looked like—Hermione Granger might have something useful to say?

Draco smirked, shook his head ruefully, and mounted the dormitory stairs. Granger’s strident voice was still ringing in his ears as she blathered on, now all but shouting to be heard across the stairwell. This time, Draco ignored his instincts and made an effort to listen.


	4. Daphne Greengrass

Daphne was a little disappointed to have been sorted into a House with so many people she knew. Oh, it was nice to have friends—or at least acquaintances—around instead of perfect strangers, of course…but at the same time, there was something to be said for strangers; those who didn’t know anything about one, or about one’s family, or one’s social and economic circumstances. Strangers didn’t—couldn’t—have any preconceived notions whereas people that already knew you…well, they _already knew you_.

And the only first year girl in Hufflepuff who didn’t already know _her_ was Sue Li.

Daphne couldn’t say that she was _close_ to either Pansy Parkinson or the Patil twins, but they had crossed paths a few times in her parents’ shop in Knockturn Alley. And that meant that all three of them must know that the Greengrass family occupied a lower rung of the social ladder than theirs. Their blood was every bit as pure, of course—but contrary to what people like the Notts or the Rosiers said, blood wasn’t everything, and it was everything _else_ that the Greengrasses lacked. They didn’t have the heaps of gold, the sprawling estates, the political clout, or the trend-setting fashion influence of the Wizarding World’s elite. If one needed an exotic or esoteric—or even dubiously legal—plant or seed or nut, one came to the Greengrasses. If one needed anything else—anything more _prestigious_ —one went elsewhere.

For all that she loved her family, Daphne desperately wanted to be part of “elsewhere.” Even impressing Professor Sprout, her head of house, in Herbology with her knowledge and experience lost some of its sheen when she heard Pansy whisper loudly to her neighbor, “Well of course _she’d_ know the answer already, she practically gets _paid_ to. I don’t think it’s fair to keep calling on _her_ all the time instead of giving some of _us_ a chance.”

That Blaise Zabini had only said scathingly, “So raise your hand faster if it means that much to you,” did very little to lift Daphne’s spirits. She didn’t have to share a common room—or a dormitory—with Blaise.

She walked out of Herbology feeling as low as if she'd accidentally sat down in a whole heap of dragon dung, and trudged back up to the school, not sure if she should be relieved that classes were over for the week or not. The week-end meant free time, but that meant time spent in the company of her housemates without teachers or lessons to distract them from talking about Daphne's plebeian circumstances. And if there was one thing she knew about Pansy and the Patil twins, it was that all three of them enjoyed a good gossip session. She wasn't looking forward to the inevitability of being a topic under discussion.

So wrapped-up was she in her melancholy thoughts that Daphne almost didn't hear the voice calling after her:

“Wait up! Hey, Daphne!”

Daphne turned around, trying to school her face into the sort of polite neutrality that her mother always wore in front of their most arrogant customers. She waited for Pansy to catch-up. She was shorter than Daphne and a little paler, although right now her cheeks were red from the exertion of trotting up the little hill between the castle and the greenhouses. She had a smear of dirt across the side of her robes and another on the tip of her upturned nose; Daphne chose not to mention either.

“Goodness you walk fast,” Pansy said, smiling in a friendly sort of way.

“Just excited to be done with classes for the day,” Daphne explained. She waited while the other girl took off her hat to smooth her short, straight bob of black hair. Pansy resettled the hat, taking care to make sure the point was straight, and they set off again for the school, walking side-by-side.

“Oh so am I,” Pansy agreed brightly. “Merlin, I thought Herbology would never end! Sprout doesn’t half go on a bit, doesn’t she?” Daphne was spared having to think of a polite reply by the fact that Pansy didn’t seem to require one; certainly she didn’t pause her speech long enough for Daphne to chime-in with an opinion. “And it’s so warm in there, with all the windows! I suppose the plants need it, but ugh, I felt like I was melting. How do you manage to not look like you’ve gone all limp and muddy, like the rest of us?”

“Practice?” Daphne suggested, before she could stop herself.

To her surprise Pansy laughed instead of taking the opportunity to say something scathing about her family’s merchant status. “Well you absolutely must share your secrets with me, all right? Please do say you will, I’ll be ever so grateful for the help. I hate looking a mess.” She wrinkled her nose unhappily.

Suddenly Daphne thought the future looked a lot brighter. She started to smile. “Well,” she said casually, as if she’d only just thought of it, “you could start by wiping the dirt off your nose.”

Pansy squawked with dismay and scrubbed at her face with both her hands. “Oh where is it, where is it?” she asked, her voice turning high-pitched and plaintive.

“Right on the end there,” Daphne pointed-out helpfully, and offered a handkerchief.

Pansy rubbed her nose until it was pink and raw, stopping only when Daphne had assured her four times that all traces of the dirt really were gone. Her shoulders slumped. “Oh, I’m so embarrassed,” she said. “Was it there long? Do you think anyone else saw?”

“It was really just a little smudge,” Daphne said, schooling her features into an expression of melancholy and sympathy. “I only noticed it when you got right up next to me, I’m sure no one else saw.” That wasn’t true—it had been quite a large smear, as though Pansy had wiped the back of one gloved hand across her face and left a great streak of dirt behind—but the truth wouldn’t do much to help her right now, while lying might earn her Pansy’s favor. That the other girl had an ulterior motive for striking-up conversation Daphne would have known even if Pansy hadn’t come out and stated it, but that only meant that her interest was genuine rather than rooted in a desire to mock or malign. It was an opportunity that Daphne wasn’t about to pass up.

“Oh I could just die,” Pansy moaned.

Daphne bit the inside of her cheek to restrain her smile. “There, there,” she said soothingly, “it’s not as bad as all that. You weren’t the only one to get a bit dirty, after all.”

“That’s true.” Pansy perked-up immediately. “Did you see poor Millicent? I think she must have spilled a whole pot on her lap. And the Abbott girl! Oh, when she got those vines tangled in her pigtails, I could have laughed myself sick!” She giggled at the memory; so did Daphne. “Ugh,” Pansy continued after a moment, wrinkling her nose again, “I’m glad we don’t have any of _them_ in _our_ house. The Bulstrodes are all right, I guess, but the Abbotts are little better than blood-traitors, and did you hear? There are _two_ Mudbloods in Gryffindor. Two! Bad enough that we’ve got that Thomas boy, can you imagine having _two_ at once? And having to share a dormitory with one, to boot! I tell you, I wouldn’t want to be in Goyle or Longbottom’s shoes, sleeping in the same room as a Mudblood. It’s unconscionable. I can’t believe they expect us to just cohabitate with those—those _people_.”

Daphne nodded agreement. While all sorts of folk—some rather less human than others—patronized her parents’ shop, and she’d learned to be polite to everyone from the richest pure-blood to the lowliest house-elf, she still didn’t relish the idea of spending time in close company with the children of Muggles. They didn’t get a lot of people like that in Knockturn Alley, and those who did come shopping there tended to do their business as quickly as possible and then get out, knowing that they were only welcome in such places on sufferance for the price of the gold in their pockets.

“I heard that Entwhistle—that albino boy in Slytherin?—he’s one, too.”

“No!” Pansy exclaimed in horror.

Daphne wondered if Pansy, too, had thought that Kevin Entwhistle—with his strikingly pale complexion and beaky nose—was handsome before she’d learned about his blood-status. Daphne hadn’t thought that anyone who looked that interesting could possibly come from the Muggle world, but apparently albinism wasn’t a strictly magical trait. It was very disappointing, but at least she’d discovered the truth about Entwhistle’s origins before she’d done something embarrassing like try and talk to him.

From the sudden blush on Pansy’s cheeks, Daphne suspected that Pansy’s thoughts likely mirrored her own. The shorter girl shook her head and muttered, “They ought to wear some kind of emblem or sign, so we know who to avoid. It’s not right that you can’t spot one just by looking. There’s no way to tell they aren’t normal on first glance, and there really ought to be. For our sake.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Daphne said, “but good luck convincing Professor Dumbledore to go along with a plan like that. The man’s a complete Muggle-lover.”

“I know,” Pansy shuddered, “my mother almost sent me to Durmstrang instead, because of him, but it would have cos—well, I mean it’s so far away, isn’t it? And I don’t think they speak English there.”

“I never really thought about that,” Daphne admitted. They occasionally got former Durmstrang students in the shop, many of whom spoke with at least a little bit of an accent, and one of their regulars was a Durmstrang alumni who conversed with her mother in French because that was the only language they spoke in common, but it had never occurred to her to ask what language the school used for its lessons. Durmstrang had never been an option for the Greengrass children, less because of its dark reputation than for the expense it would have entailed to send them there.

“German, maybe? Well, whatever.” Pansy waved a dismissive hand. “I think it’s somewhere quite cold, too. That doesn’t sound pleasant.”

“I don’t think Durmstrang is all that concerned with being pleasant,” Daphne observed drily, and they both laughed. "My grandmother wanted me to go to Zhànglínyuàn, but of course that would have been ridiculous. They almost never accept foreigners." She didn't mention how costly it would have been to go there, even worse than Durmstrang. "My Chinese is tragic anyway," she added with a self-deprecating grin, as if that had been the biggest roadblock.

Pansy laughed. "Mine's not too bad," she said demurely, "but mum says my accent is atrocious. Anyway, what would be the point in going to Zhànglínyuàn unless I wanted to actually move to China? No, it doesn't make sense to study somewhere you aren't planning to live. You just put yourself at a disadvantage when you're done and you come home, and then you've got no idea who anybody is or how they do things." She shook her head scornfully and said, "Rubbish," with an air of such finality that Daphne knew the subject was closed—even if she'd wanted to argue, which she didn't. Bad enough to be trying to break into the elite spheres of society from a few rungs down the ladder; at least she knew the players and the rules. Coming into the game as a total outsider would have been practically impossible. She still didn’t know how—or why—her great-grandparents had done it.

“You know,” Daphne said, “if you’re concerned with getting dirty in Herbology—well, my mother gave me some charmed handkerchiefs, like what she uses in the shop to keep her hands clean while she’s working. They’re bewitched to attract dirt, so it’s easy to wipe your hands off…or your nose, if you need to. I could loan you a few extra, if you’d like.” Daphne held her breath, wondering how the offer would be received. Would Pansy be scornful because she'd mentioned her family's meager merchant station, or would she accept the overture?

She only had to wait a moment for her answer: “Oh, would you really?” Pansy’s face lit up. “That would be just marvelous,” she said, “so kind of you. Yes, please, I’d love that.”

“All right,” Daphne said, with forced nonchalance. “Remind me when we get down to our dormitory and I’ll dig a few out of my trunk.” She would have to remember to write to her mother and ask her to mail a few extra of the charmed handkerchiefs. The spell had to be renewed after every washing so they were really only one-time-use items; there was only so much dirt that one handkerchief could hold before it was too much for the spell to handle, too. Her mother had promised to send replacements regularly, so long as Daphne sent her back the used-up ones to re-charm, but if she and Pansy were both going to be using them, she would need more than what she’d packed. It would be worth the effort if it left Pansy Parkinson in debt to her though, even if was only a little bit.

If she played her cards right, she might even be able to make a friend, and Pansy was the sort of friend that would surely come in handy.

Daphne smiled and led the way down to the cellars, already mentally composing her letter home. _Dear mum_ , she would write, _Classes are going nicely, and I’m getting on quite well with my housemates too. One in particular has been very friendly, and I thought it would be nice if I could do her a favor. She was complaining about how dirty we get in Herbology, and I told her about that brilliant little charm you have for handkerchiefs. Could you send me a few extra so I can loan her some? I know it’ll be more work for you to charm so many, but I would really, really appreciate it, and so would Pansy. Do you remember Pansy? She’s the Parkinsons’ daughter, she’s been in the shop with her parents a few times, and she’s ever so funny. I think we’re going to be great friends…._


	5. Lisa Turpin

Lisa looked up from her Charms essay as a curly-haired boy dropped heavily into the chair next to her. “Can you believe,” he said without preamble, “that Zabini has never heard of a hair dryer? A hair dryer, I ask you!” He flung his hands in the air as though he had never encountered such madness in the world. “Says he's never heard of it!” Justin said again, visibly scandalized.

Justin Finch-Fletchley was the last person whose company Lisa Turpin had ever thought she would seek out—and she certainly would never have expected a boy like him to want to talk to her, at least not when he had something nice to say. Yet here they were now, sitting side-by-side in the Gryffindor common room as if they were friends.

Lisa wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Justin seemed happy enough to spend time with her, at least when he was the one doing most of the talking. He had a habit of only really listening to her when he agreed with what she was saying, Lisa had noticed—but perhaps she was being ungenerous. It wasn’t Justin’s fault that he was a wealthy white boy with a double-barreled last name who came from the sort of family that talked about places like Eton with casual presumption, and it wasn’t fair of her to hold that against him. He hadn’t _asked_ to be born a Finch-Fletchley. And they _were_ the only two muggleborn first years in Gryffindor…but was that alone really enough to breach the yawning gap between his background and hers?

Lisa shrugged. “It’s not as if Zabini has enough hair to need one,” she pointed out.

“Well, perhaps not,” Justin allowed grudgingly, “but still—to have never even _heard_ of one?” He shook his head, appalled. “I asked him what his mother’s salon uses when she goes in to get her hair styled, and he told me it was none of my business what his mother did with her hair.”

Lisa didn’t tell Justin that Blaise was right, and that furthermore his mother’s hair was a subject that Justin probably wanted to steer well clear of for reasons that had nothing to do with Muggle technology. She doubted that Justin would understand why it might be considered insensitive—or worse—for someone like him to ask impertinent questions about a black woman’s hair. Of course, Blaise didn’t seem to care about things like that; from the conversations she had overheard so far, Lisa was beginning to suspect that some of the harsh realities she had taken for granted about life just weren’t true in the Wizarding World, but she didn’t know how to go about asking the sort of questions that would clear-up her confusion—not without offending someone, anyway.

_Maybe it’s just money_ , Lisa told herself. Zabini and Runcorn both acted like they were better than anyone else in Gryffindor, but they acted like they were richer than most of their housemates, too. Of course, then Justin should have been welcomed into their circle, but maybe Muggle money wasn't viewed the same as magical gold. Or maybe Justin being a stranger just meant that Zabini and Runcorn hadn't yet realized that the Finch-Fletchleys were rich—although how they could have failed to pick up on the obvious clues, Lisa had no idea.

She'd certainly figured things out fast, not just with Justin but with the rest of her new housemates. Sayeeda Runcorn had lost no time in making it clear that she considered herself well out of Lisa's league when she'd tried to strike-up a conversation over breakfast, and even Hannah Abbott, who had been nice, had giggled at her when Lisa asked where the electrical socket was so she could plug in her alarm clock. Hannah had then generously offered to wake her for classes so Lisa didn't think the other girl had _meant_ to mock her, but having the ways in which she was different from everyone else pointed-out stung even when it wasn't done on purpose.

All of the other girls had been born into the Wizarding World and had spent their whole lives knowing about Hogwarts, and wands, and the Ministry of Magic. Lisa had been born in London to a dad who worked as a delivery driver and a mum who styled hair, but probably not in the kind of salons that Justin had been thinking of, and she'd never thought that magic existed outside of the books in the North Kensington Public Library until a witch had shown-up at the door of their flat. Lisa didn't fit-in and she knew it—and so did they.

She wasn't sure which was worse: Sayeeda's constant cold-shoulder, or Hannah's well-meant attempts to over-explain every little thing. The blonde girl had sort of adopted her and Justin, like she was some kind of absurdly Anglo-Saxon sherpa guiding them through the castle's perils. Justin ate it all up, but then of course Justin had probably never dealt with well-intentioned condescension and patronizing smiles before, so there was no reason for Hannah to grate on his nerves. Lisa had her father's blue-black complexion and her mother's wiry mane of dark hair; she had been dealing with friendly white people condescending to her since she'd been old enough to walk. If people ever patronized Justin, it was probably because they’d been paid to.

"Well you’ve never heard of people riding broomsticks for transport," she finally told him, her voice terse, before bending over her essay in hopes that that would be the end of the conversation.

It wasn’t. "Of course I have," Justin protested. "Who hasn’t? Witches and broomsticks—they go together like...well, like tea and milk. I’ll admit, I didn’t picture wizards doing so as well; I’d always pictured wizards more as folk who carried long staffs and rode around on great white horses or sometimes eagles." He grinned, inviting her to share the reference. Lisa stared back at him flatly until he faltered and said, more to himself than to her, "Well anyway, a hair dryer is a lot more basic an item than a broomstick."

"Maybe for you," Lisa retorted. She suspected that Justin had probably never held a broom before in his life. She was almost looking forward to flying lessons, suddenly; at least she knew how to sweep a floor, even if she didn’t know any more about flying than he did. If they were going to make fools of themselves in front of their more experienced housemates, she’d probably make herself look like less of one than he would. That would be nice.

To her annoyance, Justin laughed instead of acting like he’d been rebuked. "Fair point!" he said. "I suppose things were somewhat difference growing-up for most of the people here than they were for us, eh?"

Lisa stared at him. Could he really be so ignorant that he thought the two of them had had similar childhoods, or was he playing some kind of sick, subtle game of mockery? "Yeah," was all she said after a while, when he continued to chuckle, "I suppose so."

Shaking her head, Lisa bent down over her revision again and started writing, trying to concentrate on Charms and put thoughts of Justin out of her mind. Eventually he ambled across the common room to chat with Stephen Cornfoot and Terry Boot, leaving Lisa to work in peace. She scratched out a few lines of work, quietly cursing the unfamiliar quill she held when the nib caught on a bump in the parchment and flicked a spatter of ink across her essay.

"Problem?"

That was Millicent Bulstrode, who had an oddly soft voice for such a large girl, looking up from her own homework at the next table over.

"No," Lisa said quickly, then hesitated. "Well," she amended, "yes. It's just these stupid quills we’re supposed to use. I'm having a hard time getting used to them, is all."

Millicent looked confused. "Don’t Muggles ever write things down?"

"Of course," said Lisa, "but we don’t use quills. We use ballpoint pens, or pencils, or stuff like that. Or _they_ do, I mean, and I did. Whatever. Nobody’s used quills in centuries, is my point."

"Huh," said Millicent, "that’s weird. Why not, trouble getting the feathers?"

Lisa had to smile. "No," she said, "it’s just that pens are more efficient. Easier. There’s no dipping in inkwells or anything, the ink is already inside the pen and it just comes out when you write."

"So do you throw them away when they dry out?" Millicent asked. She looked interested in what Lisa was saying for the first time since they’d been sorted and she actually scooted her chair over a little closer to listen.

"No," said Lisa. "I mean yes, most of the time, unless they’re a fancy refillable pen. But you can write for ages before you run out of ink. They don’t go dry after just a few lines."

"Huh," said Millicent again, even more speculatively. "Do you have any with you?"

Lisa hesitated again, then admitted, "Yeah."

"Can I see one?"

Lisa frowned, sure she was walking into a joke that would be made at her expense. "Why?" she asked, voice going hard and suspicious.

"I’ve never heard of a ballpointer," Millicent explained, "or a pen. Where do they put the ink?"

"They're hollow," said Lisa. "It’s a little plastic tube and the ink goes inside. I don’t know, I never really thought about them much. They’re just _pens_. They’re everywhere."

Millicent shrugged. "Everywhere but here," she said.

Lisa thought about that and had to agree. "Okay," she said. "Wait here."

She didn't run up the stairs to the dormitory; she still thought she was probably participating in her own imminent humiliation—but if so, Millicent Bulstrode had an excellent poker face. There hadn’t been so much as a single muscle-twitch or eyebrow quiver to indicate that she was hiding a smirk. And that left Lisa with only two options: play along and hope for the best, or refuse a simple request from a housemate and look like a jerk.

After a brief internal struggle, she dug a pen out of her luggage and walked back downstairs. Somewhat to her surprise Millicent hadn't called over any of the other Gryffindors to see the Bizarre Muggle Device and laugh at the girl who used it, but rather was sitting right where Lisa had left her, bent over her own essay and scribbling away with her quill like it was the easiest thing in the world.

"Here you go." Lisa shoved the pen under Millicent’s nose.

Millicent looked up, and then her eyebrows shot up even farther. "That’s a pen?" she said. "That doesn’t look like anything. It’s so _small—_ and plain. You write with that dinky little thing?"

"Yes," Lisa said defensively.

"How does it work?" asked Millicent.

Lisa sat down on the other side of the table that Millicent was working at and pulled a piece of parchment over toward her. "There’s no trick to it," she said. "You just write. Sometimes the pens have caps, or a button in the back that you have to click to push the tip out, but there’s nothing complicated about it," she explained, while she drew squiggly lines and circles. The pen’s ink looked thin and cheap on the thick, woven parchment, but Millicent was fascinated.

"And you don’t run out of ink? It doesn’t dry out or anything?" she asked.

"No," said Lisa. "Well, not for ages and ages anyway, like I said. You can use the same pen for weeks, months if you don’t write a lot. I don't know how long they last," she said in anticipation of the next question, "I’ve never really paid attention. They’re just _there_ , and when you need more you buy a bag full and toss them in the bin when they run out."

"Huh," said Millicent for the third time. She looked completely flummoxed and she hadn’t taken her eyes off the pen in Lisa's hand.

"Here," said Lisa suddenly, holding out the pen. "You try it."

A look of panic flashed briefly across Millicent’s face, replaced quickly by determination. "All right," she said, and took the pen. She held it gingerly, her large fingers cramped and scrunched as if she was afraid she would break the thing if she held it too tightly, which almost made Lisa laugh; if Millicent could manage a fragile feather quill, she had nothing to fear over a cheap bit of plastic.

"Just write normally," Lisa told her.

Concentrating furiously, Millicent slowly dragged the pen across the parchment. After a few lines and squiggles she drew something that was probably meant to be a horse, and something else that Lisa couldn’t recognize at all but that had wings of some sort—or maybe just very big ears—and then wrote her own name three times. Every now and then she paused and lifted the pen, as though preparing to dip it in an inkwell, then shook her head and started writing again.

"What do you think?" Lisa asked after a while.

"It’s weird," Millicent said. "It never runs out, but all the marks look the same. Like, the thickness I mean?" she explained, waving a hand vaguely. "It’s always the same line. Doesn’t look like it was actually written by someone, maybe more like a spell that somebody cast I guess...it’s weird," she repeated, drawing another series of loops. "Simple, is that the word maybe? No, plain, that's it. It looks really _plain_. Not like proper handwriting."

Thinking it over, Lisa had to admit that Millicent had a point. Her writing with the quill looked more—well, more old-fashioned. Fancier, almost like a cross between writing and calligraphy. Regular pens didn’t do that. As Millicent had said, you always got the same line out of ballpoint pen no matter how a letter curved or curled, and the only time it trickled-off was when it was running out of ink and had to be thrown away. She sighed, abandoning the half-formed idea she'd had of doing some of her homework in pen and hoping the teachers wouldn't notice.

"Well," she snapped, cross with that realization rather than with Millicent, although she knew it would sound like she was angry with the other girl, "I said they were efficient, not that they were pretty."

MIllicent grunted something non-committal, plainly distracted. "You said you had a bunch of these?" she asked.

"Yes," Lisa said, frowning again.

"Can I...can I borrow this one? Just for a little while?"

"Oh," said Lisa, startled, "um, sure. Of course. In fact, just keep it."

"Really?" Millicent looked up and grinned, the smile transforming her square, harsh features into something bright and friendly. "Thanks!"

"No problem," said Lisa, feeling unsettled. She sat there silently for a minute, then shook it off and forced herself to get back to her homework. She didn't move back to the other table though, but pulled her books and supplies over to the one that Millicent was working on. There was plenty of room for two people to share it, after all.

Millicent didn’t seem to mind.

 


	6. Megan Jones

Despite the injunction against first year students participating in Quidditch, Megan went down to watch the Slytherin team’s try-outs. As she had explained to Ron Weasley, she’d learned a lot over the years about professional Quidditch from listening to her aunt, and she’d meant what she said about wanting to know what the captain was looking for ahead of time. Surprisingly she didn’t go alone; when she’d declared her intentions to get up early and spectate, she had only been telling her dormmates her plans so that they would know that her rushing through breakfast wasn’t an attempt to avoid them. She hadn’t expected any of them to want to come along but now here she was on the bleachers with Morag MacDougal and Sophie Roper sitting on either side of her.

Morag was a tall pasty-faced white girl shaped like a beanpole. She had large, round blue eyes that looked too big for her face, auburn hair that hung down her back in loose curls, and a sparse dusting of freckles that dotted her face, arms, and even the back of her hands. She was wearing loose robes of a soft sky blue, paler than her eyes, and old-fashioned lace-up boots. Megan suspected that she came from a very old family, although she wasn’t sure if Morag was related to any of the MacDougals whose names she knew from Quidditch—but she probably was. Even if they couldn’t trace a direct relation, they came from the same clan, and with Scottish witches and wizards that was practically the same thing as being cousins, wasn’t it?

Sophie was a desi girl of average height, which would have made the three witches look like nesting dolls if Megan had been sitting on the end opposite Morag rather than in the middle. She had a round face and build that still carried more than a few traces of baby fat, which also left her figure solidly centered between Megan’s firm muscles and Morag’s boney, stick-thin frame. The warm brown color of her skin wasn’t exactly halfway between Morag’s pallor and Megan’s rich dark black complexion—the deep brown of her mother’s coloring had been diluted by too much milky white from her father—and her short hair was straighter than Morag’s curls, so she didn’t stand as a precise middle-ground between the other two girls, but it was close. From a distance, they probably looked like a perfect trio. Her clothes were brighter than either of theirs, though: Sophie wore loose trousers in an eye-smarting orange and a neon-pink tunic shirt embroidered with gold. Her shoes were ordinary Muggle trainers, but she had replaced the plain laces with bright orange ones.

Next to the two of them Megan felt plain and underdressed in her dark green smock and worn denims. Her family had been part of the magical world for a few generations but they’d never fully divested themselves of their Muggle roots—or their Muggle relatives, although _Nadolig_ sometimes got awkward when half the room couldn’t tell the other half what they did for a living without breaking the law. Fortunately being loud was a family trait, and most of the time someone would get into a furious row with somebody else’s cousin that would distract everyone from any difficulties caused by maintaining the Statute of Secrecy. Megan liked the raucous, haphazard style of her family’s celebrations—but like her favorite aunt, when she took things seriously, she had no time for tomfoolery and Quidditch was something she took _very_ seriously.

“Shh!” Megan said, when Sophie started to chatter. “I want to hear the captain!”

“Don’t you think we should have sat a bit closer, then?” Sophie asked tartly.

Megan shook her head. “They’ll be in the air for most of the try-out, more than likely. We’ll have a better view from the middle here, like.”

Morag shrugged. “You’re the expert,” she said lightly.

Sophie _huffed_ , folded her arms, and slouched down in her seat. Megan ignored the other girl’s sulking; either Sophie would cheer-up once the try-outs actually began, or she would get bored and leave. Either way, Megan wasn’t going to let herself be distracted.

Or at least she hadn’t intended to, but then a voice behind her said loudly, “Aren’t those your brothers out there?”

Megan turned around to glare and saw Harry Potter and Ron Weasley sitting a few rows farther up the bleachers. They hadn’t been there when she had chosen her seat; they must have slipped in sometime after the girls had settled, but why they had chosen to sit so close when the bleachers were less than a quarter full, Megan couldn’t fathom.

“Yeah,” Ron grunted, slouching like Sophie although without the air of bruised feelings, “didn’t I mention they’d be at try-outs? They’re Beaters.”

“No,” Harry said, looking keen and eager as he sat up on the edge of his seat and peered down at the broomstick-toting students gathered on the grassy pitch below. “What do the Beaters do again?”

Megan groaned, turned around, and tried her hardest to tune-out the grating sound of Ron Weasley explaining Quidditch to his friend. Obviously Harry Potter couldn’t be a Muggle-born, not given his history, but he must have grown-up in a decidedly Muggle-ish environment to not already understand Quidditch—but Megan was much less curious about The Boy Who Lived than she was about the technique and standards of the Slytherin Quidditch Captain. She ground her teeth and resisted the urge to interrupt Ron and better explain some of the things he was talking about. Not that he got anything wrong, exactly—but Megan was sure she could have done a better job.

“Up in the air now!”

Megan cursed; she had been so busy listening to—and silently commenting on—Ron’s words that she had missed the captain’s initial instructions to the prospective players. She could only hope that he hadn’t said anything too important yet. Bedwyr Cadwallader played Chaser and he was a tall, burly white boy with a low voice and a Cardiff accent so strong that even Megan had been taken aback for a moment when she’d first heard him speak, despite growing-up less than a hundred miles north of the city herself.

The prospective players didn’t hesitate; they grabbed their brooms and sprang into the air at once, spreading out into a shape that looked more like a large paint splatter than a circle. Cadwallader zipped up into the middle of the irregular loop and started calling out more instructions, separating the fliers out according to desired position and then directing them to fly loops around the pitch so he could check their speed and form.

Megan watched their flight too, her brown eyes narrowed in concentration as she studied the flying styles and abilities on display. Then she frowned with confusion, sure that she couldn’t have seen what she thought she had—but no, there was definitely one player who was flying considerably faster than everyone else, fast enough to loop the others. Megan wasn’t sure if he was trying to show-off by tearing around the pitch at a break-neck speed or just confuse the captain for some strange, singular purpose; every time she spotted him he seemed to be matching his speed of flight to that of his neighbors, but whenever she looked away she would catch sight of him again somewhere else, as if he had darted forward when she wasn’t watching.

It took her far too long to figure out that she was actually looking at two different boys, and when she did she felt her cheeks go hot with embarrassment, even though she mercifully hadn’t mentioned her confusion to either Morag or Sophie, so they didn’t know. But the boys were clearly two different people, just with identical stocky builds and flaming red hair. She realized with a start that they must be the brothers that Ron and Harry had talked about, they bore such a strong resemblance to Ron, and she turned around in her seat.

“Those your brothers?” she asked, jerking a thumb over her shoulder toward the pitch.

Ron looked up, startled, from whatever diagram he had been tracing on the bench on front of him with his finger. Harry looked up a moment later, smiling bemusedly. “What?” said Ron. “Oh, you mean out there? Yeah, two of them anyway. ”

“What do they fly?” Megan demanded. She was sure she had heard Ron telling Harry the answer to her question earlier but she had been too busy silently critiquing his explanations to pay attention to those details, and knowing that she ought to already know what she now had to ask left her feeling even more cross toward her new housemate.

“Fred and George? They’re Beaters.” Ron grimaced, an expression both horrified and proud. “Suited to it, too. Trust me. No surprise to anyone that’s what they got picked to play.”

“They’ve already been on the team?”

“Yeah,” said Ron, “they flew on it last year.”

Megan glared at him. “You might have mentioned that the other morning.”

“What do you mean?” Ron said, playing dumb.

“When we were talking about try-outs!” Megan exclaimed. “And I said that I wouldn’t want to try-out without knowing the lay of the land more, and you said that you wouldn’t wait—you didn’t mention that it was because you’ve got brothers already on the team who could tell you anything you needed to know!”

Ron’s pasty cheeks flushed. “They don’t have anything to do with it,” he said belligerently.

“Oh no?” Megan planted her hands on her hips, a slightly awkward gesture given her half-crooked position turned sideways on the bench, but both Sophie and Morag had turned around to stare at the two boys as well, so she had plenty of room on either side for her elbows to protrude. “It seems relevant to me, you having an inside source—or two!”

“I haven’t got an inside source,” Ron snapped. “They haven’t told me anything, all right? I doubt they would even if I asked, and I haven’t.”

Megan’s frown didn’t lighten, but it did curl upward into an expression of confusion rather than wrath. “Why not?” she asked.

Ron hunched down in his seat and muttered something that Megan couldn’t make out.

“Oi!” said Sophie. “Speak up when you’re asked a question, yeah?”

“Bully to you,” Ron retorted.

Harry coughed into his hand. Megan eyed him suspiciously, wondering if he’d been trying to hide a laugh or a snort, but he had schooled his features into an expression of innocent curiosity when he looked up again, so Megan decided to ignore him as not worth the effort of puzzling out. “You don’t need to be a tarse about it,” she told Ron. He glared back at her sullenly.

After a minute or so, Morag broke the tense silence by saying, “Ooh, look at that!” She grabbed Megan’s arm with her left hand, pointing toward the far end of the pitch with her right; that hand had no full fingers, only nubbins, so she pointed with her whole arm. They all turned to look, even Ron.

Two of the prospective players had collided. With limbs and robes tangled, they didn't seem to know which direction the ground was, let alone how to get themselves out of the way of the other fliers who were now looping around the goal hoops before turning to head back toward the wobbling pair. There was no way they could have any idea what they were flying into from that angle.

Megan winced, bracing herself for the sight of one collision becoming two, six, twelve. Behind her she heard Harry say, "Oh no," in a quiet voice. Sophie threw her hands over her face but promptly spread her fingers so she could peek through them.

Then a dark-skinned black girl, moving fast, dove away from the cluster of Chasers and shot toward the tangled fliers. Her long braids streamed out behind her like a banner. Braking in midair and using the force of the sudden stop to flip herself around on her broomstick, she grabbed the struggling fliers by their collars, turned her broomstick sideways with her knees, and dropped like a stone. The tangled pair were dragged down with her in a lump of blindly struggling limbs, pulled out of the way just in time before the cluster of Chasers swooped past through the space where they had been moments before.

The captain followed the three of them down; the girl with the braids dumped her burden unceremoniously on the ground and dismounted, standing next to Cadwallader to watch them untangle themselves. She swung her hair calmly back over her shoulder, looking remarkably unruffled.

Megan couldn't hear what was said, but she saw the captain clap the girl companionably on the shoulder before he turned to scold the fliers who had collided.

"Well, looks like she's just made the team," Megan observed drily.

"I don't think those two did," Sophie said, and they all--even Harry and Ron--laughed.

"That's Angelina Johnson," Ron said, "she's friends with my brothers. She made the team last year, too. Chaser," he added, before they could ask.

Megan shook her head, but she didn't feel like resuming the argument so she didn't say anything.

After a few minutes Cadwallader and Johnson got back on their brooms and rejoined the other fliers while the two who had collided trooped off the field, shoulders slumped. One of them even dragged his broom behind him, making Megan and Ron both wince at seeing the bristles so mistreated.

"Fred and George say Cadwallader is a bit of a stick-in-the-mud himself but he doesn't mind other people joking around," Ron said suddenly.

Megan, recognizing the olive branch, smiled before she turned around. "Yeah?" she said. "That's good to know. Fair play."

Ron grinned and together they all turned to watch the rest of the try-outs.


End file.
